The story of
Professor Penguin starts with Lloyd as a carefree young bachelor pursuing his lifelong ambition to go to Antarctica. Over the course of the next three-and-a-half decades, Davis studies the fate of that penguin he first encounters and others like it. He ponders how the penguins get to the colony and find a nest site, how they find a mate, find food, escape predators and rear their chicks. He is fascinated by the great journeys they must make, the hardships they must endure, and he marvels at their survival.
This book is first and foremost a record of research, a compendium of what we know about penguins and how that knowledge has been advanced over the years. It is also part memoir: Davis’ recollections of more than three decades as a field biologist in one of the most inhospitable regions on Earth. Through all of this there runs a kind of ethos – a philosophy – that while unspoken is clearly there on every page: that the more we learn about the lives of other creatures like penguins, the more they can inform us about our own lives.
Published by Penguin Random House in 2014. More information can be obtained from the website:
www.profpenguin.com